Tensions over industrial strategy, trade, and China’s rise will likely dominate the South Korean president’s talks in Washington today.
Seoul and Washington have long had a close relationship, but US President Donald Trump has demanded that South Korea play a greater role in its own defense, railed against the decline of American shipbuilding — a sector in which Korean firms are the dominant players — and slapped tariffs on imports from the East Asian nation.
Looming over all those issues is China, which has built out a mammoth, if not yet cutting-edge, shipbuilding sector, and whose threats against Taiwan could have a knock-on effect towards American commitments to safeguarding South Korea, Seoul fears.